Invitation Races

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31923, 26 February 1969, Page 5

Invitation Races

TOKYO. Leading jockeys from Australia, New Zealand and five Asian countries will take part in invitation races in Japan next month to commemorate the eighth Asian racing conference. The Japan Racing Association announced yesterday that G. Moore (Australia) and W. D. Skelton (New Zealand) would take part. There would also be one from Malaysia-Singapore and two each from Thailand, the Philippines and India. AH would ride Japanese horses.

The races will be held on March 16 at the Tokyo track, March 21 at the Oi track in Tokyo, and March 23 at the Hanshin track in western Japan. It was the first time in Japan’s 100-year history of racing that foreign jockeys would take pajt in a race, the association said.

About 350 delegates and observers and their families wild come from 14 countries to attend the conference. Australia will have 50 delegates, New Zealand 37, Thailand 90, the Philippines 25, Malaysia 78, Singapore 23, India 25, and Japan 200. There will be seven observer countries—-Indonesia, South Korea, West Germany, the United States, the Soviet Union, Turkey, and South Africa.

The conference will be divided into four sub-commit-tees to discuss judgment, betting, the establishment of a secretariat, and various types of horse sickness.

The sub-committees are veterinary, management, racing, and totaldsator.

The first conference was held in Tokyo in 1960. Japan last year held 288 horse races under State sponsorship, not counting prefecture or citysponsored racing. Spectators totalled eight million.